Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Sleep (again)

I know that sleep deprivation comes with babies so I feel like I can’t whinge about it; it’s like being cranky that your banana comes with a peel, because you don’t want the peel, you just want the banana, you know? YOU CAN'T HAVE THE BANANA WITHOUT THE PEEL, AND YOU WANT THE BANANA SO BE QUIET. Did this point need illustrating? I’m too sleepy to know. Anyway, I’m not surprised
by the sleep deprivation this time around, but I am shocked by how worn out it’s
possible to become while still managing to make it from morning through to
evening AND keep little people alive and fairly content during that time. I’ve
slowed down considerably, and am often very aware of my heartbeat –

Apparently being overtired makes it harder to do
things like falling asleep, which seems
like a cruel glitch in our makeup that should have been ironed out a little while ago. Falling
asleep is hard not only when when you’re too tired to remember how to actually
drop off, but also when you develop such a hatred of being woken too early that
you decide that not falling asleep will be less painful, or when you’re so
exhausted that getting through tomorrow seems impossible, and the only way to
postpone tomorrow is to stay awake tonight. I know it doesn’t make sense, but not much does right now.

I’d really love someone to look out for my tired signs
like I watch for Hazel’s and to scoop me
up and say to me, “Oh, my darling, look at you! You’re so sleepy! I’m putting you to bed now and I want you to have a loooooong nap.” I want to be able
to wake whenever I’m ready to rather than whenever I’m called for. I want to sleep for 8 hours, uninterrupted. I’d settle for 7. I JUST WANT SLEEP. And Lorde’s album. But mostly sleep.

7 comments:

I just caught up with your last few posts :-). I enjoy your writing so much. I completely understand the banana analogy. I always feel like if I complain about how tired I am that people will think I'm complaining about having H. I remember when she was about 5 months old, I was lying in bed crying that I didn't want to go to sleep and what was the point anyway, because I'd just have to wake up again :-).

YES about the complaining thing, and YES YES YES about the pointlessness thing - this week the doctor asked me if I could catch up on some sleep by having a nap during the day and I cried and told her I didn't WANT to nap during the day, I feel like ALL I GET is naps, and why I put all that effort into getting myself to sleep knowing I'd only have to wake up again in an hour? Was she CRAZY?! :)

I use (and have been pretty happy with) bloglovin, but I know there are others that other people use and are happy with, so I don't know if bloglovin's the best. I have a friend who uses feedly (HEY! I just went to feedly to check it out and I searched for my blog and apparently I have 6 followers there! THIS HAS MADE MY DAY.). I just saw this http://noshon.it/blog/2013/03/google-reader-alternatives-feedly-vs-bloglovin/ and (spoiler alert) Feedly wins. I may have to switch...

Yes, I had a terrible time with sleep deprivation with #1 and after complaining about it for the first few months, a friend (who I really do like) said to my MIL that she felt sorry for my baby because I was complaining about him do much. I felt so awful as I was trying to be as positive about him as possible, but I was just going Out. Of. My. Mind. Literally, actually, so I got to go to a mother baby unit and get lovely drugs and then we both started sleeping so much better and it was all delightful. But given #2 is due to arrive next week, I'm feeling apprehensive about going through it again. I'm no stoic, so I'll probably complain anyway :)It is true, though, that some babies sleep a lot more than others - and some mothers need more sleep than others. Some bananas come with a lot less peel!!!

I love that last line! I hope your next baby comes with less metaphorical peel so you can have more metaphorical banana. :D And that you get stacks of sleep, in case the metaphors weren't clear.

After I wrote this post I reread your comment after my last post on sleep and thought I should probably take myself off to the doctor - thank you for prompting that! It's hard to unravel all of the possible reasons for craziness when sleep deprivation is such an obvious one that can't be magically solved in order to work on other possibilities. I don't even know if that made sense. I should go to bed.

Also (sorry for the essay) when I was going crazy with sleeplessness, we introduced one formula feed per night which my husband did. I cannot tell you the blessed sweet relief of half-waking to your baby's cry and then realizing you can roll over because it's Not Your Problem. Heaven.